american phones need to get on the SIM program!

monday jan 23: so one thing i meant to write about the day before but also holds true for this day as well: so i thought that even though ive gotten used to riding on the left side of the road in england, the instinct of riding on the right will come right back to me, as it does whenever i drive when i am home. but it took a while for me to get used to it actually! i kept forgetting which way to look when i crossed the streets, and i was riding on the left side of those busy roads quite often! but that only lasted a few days and im fine about it now. although i always look both ways before crossing =) so i first tried to go to an ING bank to cash my travelers checks but they said they didnt do them and to go to the GWK office. so i decided to try another bank later. so since most museums were closed on monday i decided to head to some museums a bit north of the center that were open. unfortunately though i got extremely lost trying to find them! i really missed google maps then! i asked several people for directions but to no avail. i just kept going in circles. then i just asked this one guy on how to get to scheveningen and he told me to follow the tram line, but of course the tram split so i didnt know which way to go. funnily enough though, a few min later, i saw him walking again and he pointed me in the right direction! so as i was on my way i passed several museums, and one looked like a natural history one. so i walked in but the guy told me they were closed. and he said it so matter of factly, like as if i was supposed to know that, even though i was speaking english so i clearly was a tourist. and i said, then why is the door open!? and he said for school groups. and he said all the rest of the museums will be closed, so i asked him how to get to the panomora mesdag museum (which was open) and he told me bus directions even though i told him i was going by bike. so i tried to follow them as best i could (and as i was heading back, guess who i bumped into- the guy who gave me directions to  scheveningen! i was like, oh are you going to the beach too!? and he said no, work!) but yeah anyway i never found the museum, so i just said screw it and i headed straight for the beach. i stopped in at rabobank along the way but they couldnt exchange the checks either so i thought no bank will do it, so i guess its the GWK office for me. so i first went to the harbor area and there was a nice little historic harbor walking trail which unfortunately was in dutch. but i followed it cause it led me to the strand. so when i got there, there was some kind of work site going on cause there were bull dozers and fences blocking the entrance to the beach! not that popular in january i guess! so i couldnt even get to the boardwalk so that was a shame. i checked out the village right off the beach there, and also some dunes at the end of the strand, and then tried endlessly to find somewhere to pee for free! i went inside the palace shopping mall, but even there you had to pay. so i had downloaded some walking tours on my phone and it talked about the big fancy hotel in scheveningen that apparently the rolling stones had an infamous performance at. and i tried to go to the scheveningen museum but they were also closed (even though the door was open and there was a person behind the counter!) so after that mini tour around the area, i left to go back to the hague cause it was super windy!! so i go and try to park lance at a bicycle parking lot outside centraal station but there was like no where to put him, so i just threw him on top of a pile of bikes and ran inside. thats so crazy though, parking spaces for bikes! i like the idea, but how do people find their bike again later on!? but anyway i went inside and went back to the GWK desk. i was hoping the guy i was dealing with yesterday (remember this is the FIRST guy i was talking to..not the douchebag) but he was there and recognized me but i went to another person's counter. so the lady does some photo copying of my passport so i think ok this is finally going to happen! then she says to me, "oh you were here on saturday? and i thought that guy had told her i was there, so my heart skipped a beat, so i just said, ""no i was here yesterday. and she said oh cause youve already signed them" (referring to when i needed to sign again for signature verification..which is what i was afraid she would say!) but it didnt seem to matter to her cause she she changed my money over without incident. then i went to the library behind the central station and finally peed! the night before, brendan had sent me several emails saying he tried calling me (but my sim wasnt working) and that i should meet him at a bar called '"american bar" but he eventually left after he realized i wasnt going to show up. so i felt a bit bad, so i told him i would call him this day to meet up. so i called his hotel and asked to be transferred to his room, and the receptionist said sure but then nothing happened, even though i was still connected to the call. so i waited 5 min and hung up. i then called back about 10 min later and tried again but the same thing happened so i again hung up. the next minute brendan calls me! apparently after i called the first time he went to the desk and asked if anyone called for him, but i never asked for his name, just his room number, so the guy says no. then just as he was walking out to go catch a train to antwerp, that was when i called again, so he hung around thinking it might be me. so after i hung up the guy told him, i think that call was for you. so he used the phone and called me. it was a very big stroke of luck! so in a few minutes from then i met him at centraal station and we walked around and bought these yummy apple turnover things, and just walked around town some more and then went to a pub and had a drink. he ordered some local (either that or from belgium) beer for both of us even though i didnt want it. when he went to the bathroom, i poured half of my glass into his =) so we chatted there for a few hours, he told me about how he is trying to move to brooklyn, and about his job and stuff. i told him about my trip. and he told me the giants are in the superbowl, vs the patriots!! a pity i wont be home to watch it! but ill find an american bar in amsterdam, im sure there are plenty! so we were chatting and the bartender overheard us and she started talking to us and she asked where we were from and she said she was from philly! so we were really representing the NE cities!! then around 5:30 we left, we went to the grote kerk (one of the churchs) and he said he missed seeing old buildings like that (cause he had worked in eindhoven for a few months) and he is really into WWII history and he said we pretty much destroyed germany with all of our bombs. and he said there was one city, i forget which one (maybe frankfurt?) that the city was flattened like a pancake but because people had pictures of the old buildings, they were able to reconstruct them exactly as they were, so although the buildings are post WWII, they look centuries old! so after that we walked back to centraal station. i picked up lance in the sea of bicycles and he got his train to antwerp. then i went back to henk and petras. i arrived just in time for henk to come home from work, and then they made dinner and then showed me their photo album they had printed from their trip to vietnam. then it started to thunderstorm! i hadnt seen those in a while. i was sure glad to be inside! it was really fantastic, hard cover, with a table of contents! their blog entry for the day on the left and photos on the right. and they even had some of their routes with ridewithgps printed as well! it really made my photobooks ive made look really bad! so after that i went to bed early, although it was due to just a busy and exciting day and not mental and physical exhaustion like the previous day!